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I'm listening to a lot of reggae from the late 60s at the moment, and I'm really into Dub from the 70s and what have you.

But apparently Dub comes from Ska. Now, the only experience I have of Ska is the Specials and Madness, both of which I would probably list in my 'top 10 most disgraceful bands ever to exist'. Are they an accurate representation of the genre, or are they just the mainstream stuff that you hear about and actually nothing like PROPER Ska?

It is true, though, that the Specials took a lot more than influence from the original ska movement - the debut album contains four covers and two acknowledged reworkings, and the Gangsters riff is taken note for note from Prince Buster's Al Capone.

The best starter is a good cheap compilation and then work outwards from there, making sure you avoid the ones with 're-recorded material by the original artists', usually Skatalites tracks, as everyone passed through them at some stage. There's a couple of good proper best ofs of Prince Buster, who's generally agreed to have invented the rhythm. Ska had pretty much been forgotten before 2-Tone as Jamaican musicians slowed down and developed bluebeat (ska meets calypso), then rocksteady (more soulful), then reggae, which was literally an experiment by a couple of the Skatalites in slowing down the rhythm and from there is a different subject entirely.

(manchester maybe?), I picked up a 9-cd box set called The Ultimate Trojan Ska Box Set the other week. It's basically three existing box sets crammed into one - two ska sets and a Jamaican R&B set. SIX QUID. can't go wrong.

also, you're not only wrong about the Specials, but Madness. but it's really hard trying to convince people who didn't grow up with them how ace they were, so i'll let you off.

are the alpha and omega of ska. And maybe Fun Boy Three which is, of course, Terry Hall's next band. You can have the rest of it...meh.

Was it the Specials or FBT which re-worked Our Lips Are Sealed (both versions, btw, are brilliant). And did the go-go's give Terry Hall writing credit on that? I guess Jane Weidlin got the opening lines from a Terry Hall love letter.

The specials and madness both were influenced by 60's and 70's ska from Jamaica, as well as punk. In essence they were the first ska-punk bands. Modern Ska-Punk has much the same relation to that as modern punk does to old punk, ie not as much as it thinks it has.

Most original 'ska' sounds a LOT like reggae at first, the difference is in the faster tempo (most of the time) and subtleties like instrumental arrangements, as well as generally just the common perception.

taking ska, understanding it, blending it cleverly with new things, initially punk like aggression, later motown and then, rather groundbreakingly, the previously vacuous lounge music,making brand new shit.

with a point and a message
and a bucket of energy, attitude, integrity and tunes

and coolness that if not off the scale is right at the top

really, you cannot complain at all about that

annnnnd
madness too
although they mainly opted for fun over seriousness and music hall over punk

and they were so far from being even slightly bothered about being cool; they just knocked out a about 5 classic
and I do mean classic
singles per year for about four year,
and regulalry displaced their own albums in the top 10

are one of the greatest bands to come out of the UK. They were streets ahead of the other Two Tone bands, including Madness.
The Trojan boxed sets mentioned above are definitely a good place to start although they may seem a bit overwhelming length-wise. (Since Sanctuary bought the Trojan catalogue a few years back, they've reissued almost the entire Trojan back catalogue on a genre-by-genre basis in those 9 CD sets). If you can't face 9 CDs in one go, then try the 'Tighten Up' compilations which were released by Trojan on CD in 2-Volume sets about 15 years ago.
In general terms, the timeline of all of this is in the following order....Mento, Calypso, Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae, Dub